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Tauranga City Council has unanimously voted down a proposal for a Maori seat.
Supporters of the proposal said the time was right 150 years after the battles of Gate Pa and Te Ranga and the subsequent confiscation of Maori land.
But Mayor Stuart Crosby justified the vote on the basis a Maori ward would damage the relationship between Maori and non-Maori.
He said the right time to consider a Maori seat could be when local government in the Bay of Plenty was reorganised.
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